“It seems love is the root of all pain and most of its fruit only leaves a bitter taste behind.”

“Face the facts. Then act on them. It's the only mantra I know, the only doctrine I have to offer you, and it's harder than you'd think, because I swear humans seem hardwired to do anything but. Face the facts. Don't pray, don't wish, don't buy into centuries-old dogma and dead rhetoric. Don't give in to your conditioning or your visions or your fucked-up sense of... whatever. FACE THE FACTS. THEN act.”

“What would you rather have?""Cheeseburger and a small fry. Coke classic. Better yet, dope classic.""Sure. I'll take a milkshake. What's the special flavor this week, chocolate Jack Daniels?""Strawberry scotch.""Stick one of those paper umbrellas in mine.""Shove a syringe in mine. And a plastic tombstone. RIP, baby. He was born a rock star. He died a junkie.""Rock in peace."[...]"He wanted the world and lost his soul. [...] Sold it all for rock and roll. Lost his heart in a needle. Found his life in the grave. The road to hell is paved in marijuana leaves. Now he rocks in peace.”

“Only five books tonight, Mommy," she says.No, Olivia, just one."How about four?"Two."Three."Oh, all right, three. But that's it!”

“I have but one candle of life to burn, and i would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light.”

“If consciousness is currency, I've got me a goldmine!”

“Nine years ago, my sister handed me a paperback she had picked up in an airport shop on her way to India. It was a gloomy-looking book, with a black an white photo of a steam train approaching through fog on the cover. Cutting across the top of the photo was . . . an author's name I did not know: J.K. Rowling. I began to read the novel and by page three, I was hooked.”